Thursday, January 7, 2016

IT News Head Lines (HardOCP) 08/01/2016

MSI Z170A SLI Plus LGA 1151 Motherboard
If
you are building a new Skylake gaming system, make sure you read our
evaluation of the MSI Z170A SLI Plus motherboard. This is the type of
motherboard that has everything you need and nothing you don't.

Sometimes
less is more. That's the approach MSI has taken with the MSI Z170A SLI
Plus. Sure, ridiculously overpriced and feature packed motherboards are
nice to drool but sometimes you want just the right tool for the job.
The MSI Z170A SLI Plus is poised to be everything you need and nothing
you don't.

Chart That Tells You When Your Job Will Be Done By A Robot
Let's
face it, it's not a matter of "if" our jobs are all going to be taken
by robots, it's a matter of "when." Clicking on the interactive chart
gives you some pretty damn detailed information. The more you click, the
spookier it gets.

ID Thieves Hijacking Accounts To Cash In On Bogus Warranties
You'd
think it would be easy to bust criminals pulling scams like this. The
warranty replacement has to be shipped to a physical address (house,
apartment or P.C. box), why not start looking for the crooks there?

In
a pre-online era, when we made most purchases in person, getting a
warranty replacement on a broken product often required taking the
defective item back to where you bought it. But now that we're all
buying things online, a number of retailers are willing to ship you a
replacement on the understanding that you'll immediately return the
original item. ID thieves are taking advantage of this goodwill,
hijacking customers' accounts and convincing companies to send them free
replacements for items they never bought.

Should You Let A Security Robot Patrol Your Home?
Why
not let a security bot patrol your home? Hell, most of us are
do-it-yourself kinda guys, we would just slap a gun on a Roomba and call
it good.

That scenario just got a little more likely.
On display at CES 2016 is a new robotic vacuum from LG. The HOM-BOT
Turbo+ employs what LG is calling augmented reality technology. The
robot interfaces with your smartphone in some unique ways. To issue
instructions to the vacuum, you can designate areas that need cleaning
via your phone's camera. Tap on any part of the room in the image and
the HOM-BOT Turbo+ will go there and do its thing.

Also
displayed for the first time are the MG 4K Series gaming monitors, the
ROG GT51 gaming desktop, and the ROG XG Station 2. The 28- and 24-inch
MG 4K gaming monitors feature 4K UHD 3840 x 2160 resolution visuals, a
rapid 1ms response time to eliminate motion blur (MG28UQ), an IPS panel
to deliver vibrant colors (MG24UQ), and VESA Adaptive-Sync support for
smooth gameplay. ROG GT51 is powered by the 6th-generation Intel® Core
i7-6700K processor and NVIDIA GeForce® GTX TITAN X (2-way SLI) for
4K-resolution gaming on three displays. ROG XG2 external graphics
docking station has a proprietary circuit design that lets notebooks
harness the power of desktop graphics cards for a significant boost in
visual performance, and it is compatible with ASUS GeForce and Radeon
graphics cards. Other products on display in the ASUS Media Lounge are
the ROG Swift PG348Q display, ROG G752 and GX700 gaming laptops, ROG
Claymore mechanical gaming keyboard, and the soon-to-be-released ROG
Spatha wireless/wired gaming mouse.

Supersized Drone Will Fly People Anywhere
Even
though this company swears this supersized drone will be commercially
available in 2016 for under $300k, something tells me the FAA will have a
thing or two to say about flying around in one of these.

We
were shown an early video of the 184 flying, but it wasn't clear
whether a human was on board, and perspective seemed off. It's also a
bit suspicious that we were told it wasn't possible to see it working at
the event in Vegas due to unspecified legal reasons (not even indoors
or tethered). It all seems very mysterious, and we're not entirely sure
it's possible, let alone advisable. Still, it's a cool idea none the
less.

Microsoft Pulling The Plug On IE 8, 9, and 10 Next Tuesday
Just
a reminder that Microsoft will issue its final support patch for
Internet Explorer 8, 9, and 10 on January 12th. If you are still using
one of the aforementioned browsers, it's time to look into upgrading.

Microsoft
is ending support for Internet Explorer 8, 9, and 10 next week on
January 12th, releasing a final patch encouraging users to upgrade to
one of the company's more recent browsers. The end of support means that
these older versions of Internet Explorer will no longer receive
security updates or technical support, making anyone who uses them much
more vulnerable to hackers.

MSI Z170A SLI Plus LGA 1151 Motherboard Review
Sometimes
less is more. That's the approach MSI has taken with the MSI Z170A SLI
Plus. Sure, ridiculously overpriced and feature packed motherboards are
nice to drool but sometimes you want just the right tool for the job.
The MSI Z170A SLI Plus is poised to be everything you need and nothing
you don't. Read More ...

Kingston Digital Ships Encrypted USB with Keypad Access
Kingston
Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology
Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today
announced the release of DataTraveler® 2000 encrypted USB Flash drive.
DataTraveler 2000 offers hardware encryption and PIN protection with
access through an onboard alphanumeric keypad. It will ship later in Q1.
It is designed for global security IT professionals, small-to-medium
businesses and corporate end users who require electronic data
protection. DataTraveler 2000 is easily deployable in a work environment
where multiple devices and operating systems are in use as the drive is
OS independent and features hardware-based, full disk AES 256-bit data
encryption in XTS mode. Encryption is done on the drive and no software
or hardware drivers are needed.

DataTraveler 2000's
alphanumeric keypad allows users to lock the drive with a word or number
combination for easy-to-use PIN protection. For additional security,
its auto-lock feature is activated when the drive is removed from the
host device and the encryption key and password are deleted after 10
invalid login attempts to thwart brute force intrusions. DataTraveler
2000 is built with durability in mind as an aluminum cover protects the
drive from everyday elements such as water and dust.

Oculus Rift Priced At $600
The
official website is showing a price of $599 for the Oculus Rift. The
kit includes the headset, a sensor, Oculus Remote, cables, Xbox One
Controller, EVE: Valkyrie, and Lucky's Tale. Anyone here biting at that
price?

Netflix Launches In 130 New Countries
Reed
Hastings took the stage in Las Vegas today to announce that Netflix is
now available in 130 additional countries. The one country not on the
list was China, but Hastings said he hopes to be there "in the future."

CEO
Reed Hastings made the announcement today in Las Vegas: Netflix is now
available in 130 additional countries as of today, including emerging
markets like India, Indonesia, Russia, Azerbaijan, and developed markets
like Singapore and South Korea. Then Hastings made a loaded statement.
"While you have been listening to me talk," he said. "The Netflix
service has gone life in nearly every country of the world but
Chinawhere we hope to also be in the future."

No More Pirated Games In Two Years
I
would be skeptical if this claim was coming from game developers or
publishers but this is coming straight from the mouths of the people
that pirate the games.

The founder of notorious
Chinese cracking forum 3DM is warning that given the current state of
anti-piracy technology, in two years there might be no more pirate games
to play. The claims come after attempts to breach the Denuvo security
protecting Just Cause 3 pushed the group's cracking expert to breaking
point.